They file Michael Sneed among “people” columnists at Sun-Times, with the reliable and readable Bill Zwecker (H’wood), Stella Foster (Kup’s heir), Cindy Pearlman (also H’wood), and the incomparable (to what shall I compare her?) Susanna Night Out (photo-op shots of fun-timers grinning ear to ear). But she does like to be a regular Democrat tell-all sometimes, as today, when she refers to the Republican candidate with slight lead over Toddler Stroger in the county board presidency race as Tony “The Whiner” Peraica.

She had just puffed Toddler with an item about State Sen. Mike Madigan having “handpicked” Toddler’s campaign manager, noting that both Madigan and Toddler are Ignatius High graduates. (Has she ever noted that stepdaughter Lisa, the state’s attorney general is a Latin School alum?) The campaign manager is one Mike Noonan, from whom she quite likely got the “whiner” bit.

Not only that, she used it in reference to “GOPers . . . wishing they had a stronger candidate,” which is the perfect nasty item to plant, because Peraica does a lot of complaining, though not about trivial things, which is what whining is, but about huge waste thru patronage in a miserably run $3 billion operation.

And ditzy though shrewd Sneed injects this Dem-campaign bit a few pages in today’s paper before a full-tabloid-page story about the county’s health department as exposed by Northwestern U. researchers as hugely wasteful and miserably run.

When does interesting mean disgusting? When LA Times man Tim Rutten does a lead ‘graph on Mel Gibson as noxious:

Given all that’s been written and broadcast about the anti-Semitic tirade Mel Gibson delivered when he was arrested on suspicion of drunk driving, it’s interesting that the story’s most significant implication barely has been touched. [Italics added]

If Gibson were not a wealthy and widely admired celebrity, he’d be just another lush dragging around a mental rat’s nest of kooky opinions and morbid animosities. However, he’s not a noxious nobody; he’s a noxious actor and filmmaker dragging around a mental rat’s nest of kooky opinions and morbid animosities [repeated for emphasis] — and the only part of this affair that legitimately concerns anyone but Gibson and his family is whether any of those views made their way into his work.

And on goes Rutten, telling us what’s so darn interesting, i.e. disgusting, about it. “The press” — good for him, leaving stupid TV out of it — has not “reopened discussion” of Gibson’s movie “The Passion of the Christ,” which depended too much on Matthew’s gospel and what an anti-semitic nun wrote two centuries ago and in any case had a “sadomasochistic aura.”

Or did it? Rutten can’t quite say so but uses the venerated “some . . . argued” expression, allowing him to make the point while shrugging his shoulders. Not even neatly done, Rutten. But it’s interesting how you do it.

There’s more, which you can find here if you are willing to surrender some of your marketing demographics to his employer.

However: If kooky and morbid stuff came out of Gibson when roaring drunk, we know it was in him, else how did it come out? But his defenders, including the Jewish ones, hadn’t seen it from him in his sober moments, that is, moments when he was in control. I do believe our character depends on the latter moments. In this I am in tune with (a) how our society judges people — temporary insanity, anyone? and (b) the Catholic Christian teaching I grew up on, and millions of others too.

Rat’s nests? Please, we all have them, of one kind or another. Question is, what do we do about them? Sober, Gibson has done just fine, his friends say. Drunk, he becomes a man possessed, as if by devils depicted in Matthew’s gospel. So open the envelope and name the exorcist, please, 12–step program or whatever cleanses him. That will be the interesting part.

A view from Canada of Israeli-Hezbollah culpability that you don’t run into often enough, including details of Palestinians etc. upping body count with imported corpses: 

On Thursday, Israel apologized for last weekend’s bombing of an apartment building in Qana, Lebanon, in which more than two dozen civilians were killed. As a result of faulty military intelligence, Israel believed the building was being used as a “hiding place” for terrorists. In fact, it was a refuge for innocent men, women and children.

But while Israel has admitted its role in these deaths, the terror organization Hezbollah has not. Hezbollah’s cowardly practice of hiding behind human shields was the reason the Israel Defense Force (IDF) began bombing Qana in the first place. Since the beginning of this war, Hezbollah has sought to maximize civilian deaths on both sides, not only by firing rockets at the heart of Israeli cities, but also by firing those rockets from inside Lebanese homes and apartment buildings — thereby ensuring more civilian casualties when Israel protects itself by striking back at the rocket launchers.

more more more . . .

The village board drew a line in the air above which architect John Scheiss was forbidden to rise.  But he did it, and now he pays:

Learning that the Opera Club mixed-use building at the southeast corner of South Boulevard and Marion Street was built 5½ feet higher than it was supposed to be drove the Oak Park Village Board last night to levy a hefty fine–$188,223 . . .

The Opera Club developer also has to make a parking lot on land a block away that is to be cleared.

Scheiss has apparently been making changes that depart from a 2004 agreement with the village.  The board just found out about them, such as using bricks that displease the eye on one wall.  But news of the 5 1/2–foot overbuild is what tore it for the trustees.

Trustee Ray Johnson, the most developer-friendly of the seven, called it “a serious issue,” even though he had earlier said the discrepancies might have been the village’s fault. 

“This takes us to another level,” Johnson said. “That’s a major problem for me.”

A key village staffer, head of its Building & Property Standards Department, admitted that village procedure, even in measuring height, “leaves something to be desired.”  But it’s up to the developer to stay within guidelines, said village president David Pope.

The height issue had top priority at the start.  Schiess wanted seven stories, neighbors wanted five at most.  But he went with five to reap good will for the developer, he said, who has other Oak Park projects planned.

But the five-foot discrepancy was clear from the start, Scheiss said at the 8/3 meeting at which the fine was imposed, not only to him but also to village staff — who apparently did not inform the trustees — because an extra foot per floor of “unusable” space had been prescribed by the structural engineer.

[Scheiss] said he met with [Village Planner Craig] Failor and another staff member to review the plans and they talked about the height difference. Staff had the opportunity to not approve the plans, but they approved them, Schiess said.

Meanwhile, Scheiss got the OK from someone else — the above-mentioned Building & Property Standards people — for the sensible-shoes no-style brick but didn’t tell the planner.  These bricks were what had trustees’ shorts in a bunch until they heard about the five or five and a half feet — measurements differ, alas — and that’s what made the roof fall in on Scheiss and the Opera Club.

Rocky Mountain News editor targets Editor & Publisher as leftist rant:

[E&P editor] Mitchell is mistaking standard opinion journalism for media criticism. There are plenty of places to debate the right approach to Iraq or to the current Mideast Crisis, but what he’s doing is not media criticism.

Even if he’s going to wear his politics on his sleeve, he should be taking on the quality of the reporting, not recounting his unhappiness with the editorial positions of journalists or newspapers. At a minimum, he should have his Web site provide an opposing view. But what he should really do to make his publication relevant is critique journalism, not tell us what he thinks newspapers should be saying on their editorial pages or in their columns.

Now.  In this presumed media-critique blog, do you find positionism leaking in?  That’s entirely possible, but this editor’s slam at the E&P man serves as a good reminder not to let it do so.  (Hat tip to Romenesko)